Here’s the lo-res PDF of the rules (still not necessarily something you wanna choke down if you’re on dialup). I’m classifying this one in “Card Games” now because there appears to be no component of miniatures or positional play, or indeed any gameplay-based reason for the models to exist at all. Hey, at least this one gets around the patent!

I disagree with your assessment of the models not being used in game play. There are three zones of play plus a characters reserve fleet, so there is some positionality, although it is positionality as one thinks of in checkers as opposed to a typical war game. Also, damage is assigned on a ship-by-ship basis.

Now arguably the models could have been replaced by cards featuring the ships, and perhaps that was your point. But by that logic, lots of wargames could be turned into Battleground by YMG.

I never got a chance to demo this at GTS, but at least based on initial impressions, the rules themselves don’t seem to give a lot of tactical options. It’s almost more of a resource allocation game than a wargame from the appearance of the rulebook. Perhaps like a traditional CCG, the text on the cards is the meat of the game.

I have terrible vision, so I don’t have a clear idea of the rules. As best as I could figure out through all the fuzzy vision, there are 3 zones (your home territory, uncontrolled space, and your opponent’s territories). You play Objective cards in your home territory and your reinforcements always start in your home territory. The goal of the game is to march your ships into your opponent’s territory and blow up all his objective cards without letting him blow up your home territory. You can only move a ship one zone at a time, and you can only attack a defending ship with an attacker in the same zone.

Had a chance to actually play this at Celebration. It’s quick to play, the ships look great, and it’s deep enough to be interesting for gamers while shallow enough to be playable by non-gamers. Also, the total buy in necessary to make a standard fleet per the rules is still lower than the cost of just a starter pack of WotC’s starship game, which cost you’ll need to at least double if you want to build a pure force under that game’s rules.

Now there’s an idea! An edible collectible game! Whenever one of your pieces is destroyed, you or your opponent can eat it (kind of like Iron Man Magic, where you physically destroy your cards). Think of the re-buy potential! “That Elven Archer worked out great and was so delicious… I must find more. What do you mean it’s rare?!”

Of course you’d have to deal with spoilage issues and potential weight gain in your target audience. And singles on eBay are probably a shaky prospect. Not to mention the potential for poison in organized play…